


JUMPER

by sidnihoudini



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Reality, Angst, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-10
Updated: 2008-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-08 01:33:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/71333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three months after Dean makes the deal, Sam disappears. Simple as that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	JUMPER

Three months after Dean makes the deal, Sam disappears. Simple as that.

.

Dean spends two days in Chicago, a week in Boston, and four hours in the heart of New York. He checks the obits, looks every person he crosses in the face, and, in one flat out _desperate_ moment somewhere in Cincinnati, pulls out a wrinkled 3-by-3 photo of Sammy taken a couple of years ago, and asks everyone walking in wide circles around him on the street: have you seen this guy? Tall up to here, built like a brick shit house? Nobody has.

He slinks around Texas for five nights, travels into Maine for a couple of hours, stops by Bobby's place on his way through to New Orleans. Rents out a motel room for two and a half weeks in Florida, and god does he ever hate the East coast, but Florida isn't as bad as he remembers Arizona was, so he can deal.

At a local library somewhere in rural Utah, Dean types "sam winchester" into a nation-wide news search engine, but the only article that turns up is about the Winchester boys facing off against some Sam Pollock guy in a national tennis match.

In Salem, Oregon, he lurks around a kitschy-looking coffee place that has Sam's bad taste written all over it until the owner comes out and tells him to fuck off, he's scaring away the customers, and even some of the regulars are getting weirded out. Dean puts both his hands up, no contest, and retreats to the parking lot. He sits in his car for twenty minutes, trying to make a new plan of action.

So it's kind of a surprise when he stops to refuel in San Fransisco, and finds Sam's face front and center on the first page of the Lifestyles section in the Times.

.

Dean grabs a couple pieces of jerky to go along with his coffee and six-pack of Pepsi Max.

"Oh, lemme have one of them cheese dogs, too," He adds, throwing a wrinkled twenty down as he points over the clerk's wiry shoulder, at the hot mess of cheap meat rotating on little skewers under a hand-written sign that reads, CHEEZY DOGS 2 FOR A DOLLA. Dean smirks a little, tapping out a rhythm against the glass over the scratch tickets. "I like your sign too, man."

The teenager scowls through his mop-hair at Dean, and goes for a pair of tongs, trying to catch one of the greasy fuckers and throw it into a bun. It does look delicious.

Idly, Dean taps his fingers around the front of the counter, and looks around the little gas station hub. There's a rickety looking table and chairs set up by the front windows that look perfect to hunker down in and wrangle his cheese dogs on. Someone's even left a dog-eared newspaper for him to sticky-finger leaf through.

He almost fumbles the two dogs the equally greasy teenager hands him, but manages anyway, getting his recent purchases over to the little table and chairs. The stuff for later goes on the Sam-chair, the one Dean's been carefully keeping warm these last six months. He adjusts the chair so it's sitting at a perfect angle to kick his feet up on, and wedges half of the first cheese dog into his mouth as he goes for the newspaper too, already looking well read and coffee stained. He checks the date to be sure, but it's only from yesterday.

He's leafing through, looking for the classifieds or obits or _anything_, really, when it falls into his lap.

Like, really, literally falls into his lap, and he picks it back up, not thinking, really, because then he's _choking_, full on choking on a _wiener_ of all things, and -- _Sam _\--

All this looking Dean's been doing.

All the traveling.

All the cold nights, and the girly sobbing and the pretending he wasn't, because he _couldn't._

And here's Sam, looking up at him from the front page of the Lifestyles section. Flanked by a guy and a girl, photo captioned: _Who needs to travel when there's home? Local activists Simon Luci, Sam Winchester, and Jeanette Hyde demonstrate Thursday for a cleaner, safer Columbus Hill. Photo taken by Peter Marshall. _

Dean sets his cheese dog down on the table, wipes a good amount of rogue ketchup on the thigh of his jeans, and gets up, calmly, carefully.

Inside, everything he's made out of is either failing, triple-timing, or rushing with adrenaline.

"Columbus Hill," Dean says to the kid still dinking around behind the counter. "Around here?"

The kid nods and brushes his bangs off his face with a pinky finger. Dean's stomach is starting to ache. "In North Beach. 'Bout forty minutes that way, yeah," He says, with a non-committal jab of his thumb over his left shoulder.

"Okay." Dean nods, and sets the newspaper down on the counter. "Okay." He glances around, the mecca of chocolate bars under the counter nothing more than a blur as he tries to regain his footing. He didn't realize he'd find Sam today. He didn't even mean to stop here, but he'd run out of gas, and, and the cheese dogs... He licks his lips and clears his throat and now the kid is looking at him funny. "I need a pack of Marlboro's," He says, without thinking.

The kid gives him a stiff look. "I.D., please."

Dean rolls his eyes, but pulls his wallet out anyways.

.

He's got a map of San Francisco spread out over the passenger side seat, the front page of the Lifestyles section jammed between his dash and the window, and a pen between his teeth.

"Where the fuck am I," He grumbles to himself, leaning forward over the wheel to try and see a street sign. Not that it would help any.

He stops at a yellow light and tries to assess the situation. Going from the if anything but vague directions the gas station attendant bestowed upon him, he figures he should be here by now. Wherever 'here' is, it's probably not much further than this intersection.

Frowning, he looks around and surveys the area. Some place called BODYSHOP, colorful and worn down looking. The Century, featuring some chick named Rebecca Wild, who wants ALL of your FANTASIES to _COME_ true. Dean kind of chuckles.

But strippers aren't going to help him at this particular moment in time, and as he scans the area, he realizes that he's very, very lost. But more importantly, this gigantic city rumbling around him is hiding something he's been missing for a long time -- six months too long. And all this bullshit about waiting at a red light when there's a _Sam_ hidden somewhere around here, maybe not _here_ but somewhere, is complete crap.

Dean winds his window down and flags the nearest person's attention. The nearest person also happens to be a six-four transvestite prostitute wearing pleather shorts and a feather beret.

"Hey! Yo, sweetheart!" Dean calls, whistling. She immediately whips around with a practiced grin on her face.

When she sees him she winks, and starts sauntering over to the car, hips swinging low, glancing up at the traffic light as it changes to green.

"What's goin' on, baby?" She asks Dean, ignoring the car behind him, who's already honking and bitching at Dean to _get going, already._ Unless that car is also looking for Sam, he doesn't give a shit.

Dean smiles up at her. "Maybe you can help me. See, I'm lost."

"You are pretty," She tells him, pouting her bottom lip out. "But mama doesn't help nobody without some," She pauses to rub her fingers together in a universal sign for 'cash.'

Holding her gaze for a second, he breaks way too easily and reaches for his wallet, pushing his hips up off the seat so he can get into his back pocket.

"Twenty?" He asks, holding a bill out between his pointer and middle finger.

She snatches it from him with a smile on her face and tucks it into her bra cup, then leans against the door of his car with a toothy smile. The light changes back to red.

"I'm trying to find someone who lives in North Beach," He explains to her, weighing his foot against the break peddle. "Only problem is, I can't find North Beach."

The prostitute scoffs at him and pushes her boobs together right in Dean's face. He raises his eyebrows and smirks a little, yeah, okay.

"Baby, you're far off. This is the Tenderloin," She tells him, but it means absolutely nothing. He's only been through San Fran twice not including today, and one of those times was for a salt and burn on a gay zombie. Yes, gay zombie. "Tell you what," She starts, tapping the door of his car and pointing down the street. "Follow this road 'til you hit the downtown district, you'll know it when you get there, downtown goes into Nob Hill, there's money in places you wouldn't _believe_, there. Then keep going north. You'll hit it."

Dean reaches for his little tourist map and pulls the pen out from behind his ear. His hand is shaking a little bit. His hand hasn't shook since the first time he held a gun, and even then, it was only the adrenaline.

He scribbles down the directions she gave him, completely ignoring the honking, the quiet-scary sound of cars nearly side-swiping him as they lose their patience and bolt through the second green light.

"Honey," She calls down to him, softly, trying to duck, then, and look at his face. He glances up from his scribbled-on napkin and up at her. "Who're you looking for?"

Dean tries to brush it off with a grin and shake of the head.

"Oh, you know," He shrugs, car discreetly lurching away from the curb as he reaches for the remainder of his Marlboro's. "Just," He pauses, licks his bottom lip, and bumps a cigarette out of the red and white packaging. "Just, someone I've been missing, I guess."

She reaches in and touches the side of his neck. Her fingers are a lot warmer than he'd give her credit for. "I can see it all over you," She says, then leans forward, a serious expression on her face. "I'm psychic, you know."

Dean barks out a bit of a harsh, surprised laugh as he lights up and her hand slips away from his neck.

"Psychic, huh?" He asks, inhaling, exhaling and letting his lighter snap closed.

She nods and backs away from the car.

"It'll be different, not like you're used to, with him," She says, and Dean's heart stops right still in his chest. He didn't realize he'd been that obvious, but then she's sauntering away again, ass hanging low out of her shorts. She spins around like Naomi Campbell in that make-up commercial, arms loose at her sides. "You'll catch on soon, though," she tells him, and winks.

The next green light, Dean peels away from the stop line, and doesn't stop until he hits the district border.

.

She's right: downtown looks just like any other downtown Dean's ever seen in his life, tall buildings and clubs packed with young go-getter's in their little black dresses, squealing, shiny blond hair and glittery little clutch purses. Between Tenderloin and here the dusky hum of 8PM has settled into a purple night sky and blinking signs everywhere, for everything, restaurants and bars and a tuxedo place, which Dean doesn't fully understand but still thinks is pretty cool.

Downtown filters out into an expensive-looking area, rows and rows of condos and mansions and business architecture fading up a huge hill that Dean struggles to see the top of in the dark. He only has to circle a few blocks a few times until he finds an exit leading straight into North Beach.

He starts feeling nauseous enough to pull over when he realizes _this is it._

Dean pukes into the bushes outside some Italian restaurant until someone with a heavy accent chases him off, and threatens to write down his license plate number.

.

He checks into a dumpy little motel about three blocks from where he almost got his ass handed to him by an Italian grandma, and sprawls across the twin bed, trying to breathe steady.

Sam.

The last time he saw Sam, he,

He.

.

They'd been in Georgia, trying to wrangle a group of centaurs that were really just pissing Dean off. The last conversation they'd ever had was over the bathroom sink, sponging the blood off of their faces and the backs of their elbows, making sure it wasn't theirs or each others.

"Fuck this supernatural bullshit," Dean bitches, still riled up about the centaur he tripped over en-route to killing another one of the little bastards. Sam grabs his hand and screws off the ring on his finger, Dean watches him set it at the edge of the sink. He frowns, then rinses off the blood-ring that was hiding underneath the metal. "Me and you, Long Beach. No, no, _Miami_."

Sam snorts and watches Dean through the mirror. "You hate the sun. You hate sand. You don't like even like _California_, Dean, and you wanna go to Miami?"

"Live out my last days with a gaggle of chicks in bikinis," Dean smiles into the mirror. "It'd be amazing. You could be my evil henchman."

Rolling his eyes, Sam takes a towel off the back of the toilet and starts drying his arms off. Dean watches him in the mirror. "Yeah right," He says to nobody in particular.

"Dude, can you think of a better plan?"

Sam looks over at him sharply, eyes narrowed, hair hanging all in his face. "Actually, Dean, yeah I can."

"And what's that?" Dean reaches for his ring again. Last time he accidentally knocked it down the drain during one of his rants.

It takes him a minute, but Sam stops drying his hands and hands the towel over to Dean. "I already told you, I'm going to save you."

"_Sam_," Dean starts, just holding the towel, still standing there, dripping.

Sam reaches over and grabs Dean by the back of the neck, wrenches him closer. Dean kind of stumbles, this whole deal thing is sore-new.

"I'm going to save you," He promises quietly, seriously, to Dean, and Dean blinks up, mouth closed, and believes him.

.

The next morning, after a night of not sleeping, Dean stops at a little pastry store to get some coffee and a half dozen fancy looking cookies. His plan is to wander around, dig up some local information, and hopefully even find a library.

He stops at a pay phone booth to catch the dangling phone book and flip through to W. He doesn't know if it's been recently updated, or if Sam even goes by their last name, but he figures it couldn't hurt to at least look.

There are two Winchesters, an Ada and a Forrest, and Sam might be a lot of things, but Dean can't see him going by 'Forrest Winchester.'

He frowns and sets the book back on the metal shelf encased in the phone booth, rusty underneath and covered with some mysterious sticky crap on top.

Dean wipes one hand against his jeans and munches on a cookie with the other as he steps back out onto the street.

Library it is.

.

Dean tries to convince the woman at the information desk in the library that he's not a stalker, nor is he a serial killer or a rapist, but goddamnit woman, if you don't tell me how to track someone down in this tiny suburb, I will cap you.

She glares up at him from under the frames of her glasses, and points at the sign sitting near her elbow. QUIET, PLEASE.

"It's just -- " Dean starts, but then she _taps_ the sign and continues to glare up at him.

Dean jostles against the side of the counter and tries to look wounded. "If you could just -- "

She makes some kind of hissing noise, not a _shh_ but scary enough to shut Dean right the hell up.

"Never mind, then," He manages, three careful steps back before he takes off to the computer benches.

As he approaches, a sweet looking teenage girl with blond hair looks up at him.

He frown-smiles at her, and sits down two computer stations away. After clicking on two or three different icons, he finally gets the internet to open.

"Facebook," She says, from across the way, looking right at him, level over the top of his decade-old monitor.

Dean raises his eyebrow and glances back over his shoulder, to see if she's talking to anyone else. All he sees is the librarian glaring back at him.

"Sorry?" He asks, turning back around to face the girl.

She scoffs and rolls her eyes, flips her hair and all those other tiny teenage stereotypes Dean hopes he never flaunted. Especially the hair flipping.

"Facebook? Social networking? _Hello_?" She waves her hand in front of his face. "You're trying to find someone, right?"

Dean licks his lips. "Well, _yeah_."

"Oh my god," She says to herself, pushing away from her desk and rolling over to him on her office chair. She bumps into his side and elbows him out of the way to get at the keyboard.

A few quick keystrokes and a hidden password later, Dean's staring at some bullshit about connecting with people from your past. This is way over his head.

"What's her name?" She asks him, clicking around a few times. A contrasty photo of her drinking a beer comes up in the corner of the screen. Maybe she's Dean's kinda lady, after all.

Dean clears his throat.

"Um, Sam," He starts, leaning closer, getting a better look at the screen. "Winchester. W-I-N-C-H-E-S-T-E-R."

She types Sam's name into the search function and clicks around a few more times, before, god, a punch right to the gut, a photo of Sam looking like _Sam_, and, and --

The girl clicks around so fast, Sam's gone in half a second. "Hey!" Dean squawks, leaning forward to try and take the mouse out of her hand.

"He's gonna be at the Fawn Cafe tonight, around eight," She tells him, trying to slap his hand out of the way.

He completely boggles at her as he asks, "How the hell do you know that?"

"Left a comment on some dude's wall, see," She points at the screen, Dean has to squint but he makes it out: _well either way i can't wait to see you tonight, you better be as excited as i am. the fawn, 8ish, right? youve got my cell number!_ "It's dated at nine-thirty this morning. So, yeah. Tonight."

Dean stares at the screen some more, like maybe it'll give him all the answers.

Or, you know. Maybe it already has.

.

The restaurant Sam chooses is out on the Northern Waterfront, which is easy enough to get to.

Dean parks in the staff lot, saunters through a delivery only door, steals a crisp looking uniform, and is out on the floor before seven thirty. It's a pretty fancy looking place, built right over the water with the air smelling like tequila and the ocean. Dean gets tangled up in a strand of red pepper lights strung up in the kitchen doorway, and has some pretty brunette smile and flip her hair at him for all his efforts.

He grins back at her, knocking the lights away, and steadies his tray of coloured drinks.

.

Edging between two different table fulls of people, Dean holds his tray up and worms through the crowded floor, making his way back over to the couple he's been serving by the wooden railings. It's a beautiful night and the cheesy Mexican music floating through is making Dean all kinds of sentimental: mariachi bands do that to him. He smiles at the girl who ordered the same fruity drink Sam got that one time as he sets their martini glasses down carefully -- he worked at a cafe near the Canadian border for three weeks when he was seventeen, he knows how to make this waiter thing work.

"Thanks," The girl giggles at him, stopping abruptly to widen her eyes and cover her mouth when the guy she's with gives her a sharp glare. Dean takes their empties and quickly disappears back into the crowd. Getting beat up by some ape shit alpha male is not what he wants tonight to end with.

He goes over his current plan of action while lurking around the kitchen doors, waiting for a plate of onion rings. His current, and so far only plan, is to assess the situation once he knows for sure it's Sam. Which, quite honestly, is one of the most half-baked plans Dean has had in a while. It's just, fuck, he has no idea what could have happened, why Sam's been living in some little foggy town in _San Fransisco_ of all places, without saying a word of it to Dean. Dean frowns until someone calls an order up, and he's got no choice but to carry around a mountain of greasy awesomeness that he wishes were in his mouth _right now._

It's still quarter to eight when Sam walks through the front doors, freezing Dean dead in his tracks. The Long Island iced teas he's carrying wobble against the tray, and he has to steady the base of the glasses with his hand as he forgets to blink, dumbstruck. Sam is flesh and bone and _smiling_, for fucks sake, like Dean hasn't been dying every day for the last nine months.

"Sammy," Dean whispers to himself, mostly under his breath as he watches the back of Sam's head. Sam's shuffling around already occupied chairs and stray jackets, bags discarded mid-aisle as he tries to get to a vacant table nearest the railings.

A bottle head brunette snaps her fingers at him from three tables away, and continues to boggle at him until he remembers what he was supposed to be doing, and brings her and her feisty looking girlfriend their iced teas.

"Enjoy," He smiles, crudely, setting their drinks down on the table with a more than obvious slosh.

.

He approaches Sam's table carefully, like he's tracking a shape shifter and not his little brother. After taking a fifteen minute break to theorize his best plan of attack, Dean settled on getting bitched at by some customer he forgot to bring a refill to, and bite the bullet and do it. Just walk.

Sam's texting on his phone, bent thumbs pointed out in different directions as he rapid-fires a few off. Dean's belly is to his toes by the time he gets within earshot range, watching as Sam sets his cell back on the table, near his plate, hesitates, picks it up to check the time once, and then sets it back down.

Dean's hands are about as close to trembling as they're ever gonna get as he comes to stand at Sam's left.

"Ready for a drink yet?" Dean asks, a little too loudly coming out of the silence, making Sam startle.

Sam looks up at him like he wishes Dean had never seen the way he made him jolt, and scratches his eyebrow as he laughs a bit, recovering, and god, it _is_ Sam, Dean can feel his mouth drying. He tries to hold his tray up as a safeguard between them.

"Yeah, uh, can I just get a Corona, please? No lime," He asks, long legs stretched out either side of the table. Dean's eyes trail over the back of Sam's hand, curved beside his set of cutlery and folded napkin. "I'm kinda waiting for somebody."

Dean swallows, hard. "You got it."

.

Dean takes another break out back to have a smoke and regroup. He doesn't particularly like the harsh taste of nicotine, hasn't smoked since well before he and Sam caught up again, but if there's one thing that calms him right the fuck down that isn't Sam's steely bitch face, it's definitely a cigarette.

"Damnit," He grumbles to himself, rubbing a hand over his face, slipping down to loosen the collar of his shirt. He takes a long drag of his smoke, holds it in his chest until he goes light headed, and flicks the ash against the concrete.

The sky is turning from purple into dark, dark red now, and above all the city lights and sound, the stars are finally, properly starting to come out.

"You can't fuck this up for me," He whispers, to the brightest one that looks close enough. "Three months is all I got."

He feels completely ridiculous as he finishes the rest of his cigarette, but as he's heading up to the restaurant, he also glances back over his shoulder, just to make sure the star is still there.

It is, bright and obvious and in the end so meaningless it makes Dean's hands ache.

.

When Dean gets back at ten after eight, Sam's date still hasn't arrived.

"Sorry for the wait," He apologizes, setting a Corona without the lime down on the table in front of his brother.

Sam looks up at him, twitch-smiling a bit, like he _knows_ Dean knows, which is completely ridiculous. He reaches for the beer and rests his finger against the rim of the bottle.

"Don't worry about it," He says, distracted as he glances at his cell display again.

Going for the little pad of paper in his back pocket so maybe he'll stop thinking about how Sam is eye level with his crotch, Dean asks, "You wanna order now? Food'll be ready by the time he gets here."

He doesn't even realize what he's said until Sam's smile flickers a bit and he looks up at Dean from under his bangs. "That obvious, huh?" He asks, hopefully amused.

"Um, naw, nah, not at all," Dean fumbles, floundering and making it _way too obvious_ that it's obvious as he shakes his head a couple of times.

Sam's easy smile turns into a few uncomfortable laughs as he starts peeling the label off his Corona, flicking his thumb over the damp glass.

"I think I'll hold off a couple minutes, actually," Sam says, wrapping his hand full around the bottle. Dean's brain goes fuzzy. "Thanks, though."

Trying not to fall over the other chairs as he backs up and makes his way towards the kitchen, Dean wonders what happened to all his suave and charm as he says, "Let me know if you change your mind."

.

Dean serves the other people seated in his area until the night dwindles down to a couple making googly faces at each other over the candle light, and Sam still sitting by himself, hunched over and working on his sixth beer.

When it gets down to less than a gulp, Dean sets another one down in front of him without a question.

Sam smiles up at him, wet-eyed and on his way to tipsy, pressing his lips together all tight like he does when he's sad or pissed off.

"Thanks," He says. Dean shrugs and looks appropriately helpless. "What's your name?"

Dean fumbles for a second, glancing down at the line of empty bottles sitting on the table where Sam's _whoever it is'_ food should be. He looks back at Sam, a little more sharp than he'd intended to.

"Dean," He says, can't lie to Sammy, as he reaches for the empties. They're closing in fifteen, or so he's heard.

Sam props his head up on a hand and nods. "Dean," He repeats. He looks off into the distance behind Dean's head. "I'm Sam."

"Nice to meet you," Dean says, quiet, too quietly, as he hoards the empty beer bottles and gets back to the kitchen as fast as he can.

.

He can't help thinking about who Sam was waiting for as he scrapes leftover fries and onion rings out of the deep fryer and into a flimsy take out container. In fact, there are so many _other_ things Dean should be mulling over at this current fork in time, that he starts to feel more than a little ridiculous as he dumps a few spoon fulls of coleslaw in and stews about the fact Sam's been fucking off with some new guy.

Not, you know. The fact that Sam seems to have lost his memory, or anything.

Dean leaves his dinner on the back counter as he changes out of his uniform behind the deep fryer, right underneath a bright blue and black sign that reads ALL EMPLOYEES MUST WASH THEIR HANDS BEFORE COMMENCING DAILY WORK.

He nods an awkward goodbye to the mostly latino night cleaning crew that file in to mop and prepare for the six a.m. breakfast rush and ducks out, uniform under one arm and takeout in the other.

It's between the brick path leading up to the restaurant and the staff parking lot that Dean bumps into Sam.

"Hey, sorry," Dean says, reaching with his uniform-arm to try and steady Sam. The touch makes his fingers burn.

Sam looks at him, drunken-sad, half smiling. A kicked dog left out in the rain.

Dean hasn't seen this look in months, but whoever this Sam is, he's perfected it.

"I'm not trying to stalk you," Sam promises him, a little drunkenly, and Dean glances down just as Sam brings up the bottle of Jim Beam he's holding. It looks about three quarters full, so Dean figures not much damage has been done.

Smiling a little, Dean nods and holds Sam up by one elbow. "Okay," He agrees.

"You know what it is," Sam starts, throwing out the hand holding the booze. Dean grimaces when a good shot and a half goes flying out of the bottle and splatters across the parking lot. "This guy I was gonna fuck tonight, I've been trying to convince him for _months_."

_Awkward_, Dean thinks, shifting. The styrofoam take out container makes a funny crackling noise in his hand.

"But who cares?" Sam asks nobody in particular, swinging his arm up to swig from his bottle. He swallows, makes a face trying to keep it down, and looks right at Dean. "Cause you know what?"

Dean's voice is quiet and all kinds of soft as he takes a step back. Sam shadows him. "What?" He asks.

"I decided," He's kind of out of breath and starting to get all intense. Dean feels small under his gaze -- nothing new there. "That you'd be better for me. You're _best_ for me."

This weird alternate reality Sam is not unlike what real life Sam would have been like if Dean hadn't kept him wrangled under that 'seriously cheesy, Sammy' net for the last few years.

Dean smiles a little, can't help it, the way Sam's breathing is all shallow and he's waiting on Dean's answer like it's imperative, like he isn't just a drunk standing there, wobbling in front of Dean.

"Okay," He starts. This Sam is so different, so average, so happy even though he thinks he's miserable. "Okay," He repeats, reaching for Sam's alcohol. "Just let me catch up first."

.

They end up at Fisherman's Wharf, sitting at the edge of a darkened pier as they swig half of the Jim Beam each. Dean can tell Sam is rapidly, dangerously falling for him - a triple time of what they both went through years ago, sped up to the point of dizziness. Dean feels like he's being introduced to his brother for the first time. Sam has these stories Dean has never heard before, about people Dean's never met or been mentioned to. Sam drunkenly talks about his crazy rich uncle who might be a raging alcoholic and table dances at all his family's Christmas parties.

Dean sits there in the dark, trying to figure out if Sam's had the chance to have a Christmas without him, yet.

"How long have you lived here for?" Dean asks, squinting out over the water. It's foggy and purple and pretty memorable, as far as landscapes go.

Making a face, Sam loosens the knot in his tie and follows Dean's gaze out over the water. "My whole life. I grew up in Richmond, broke my ankle on the Golden Gate when I was six."

"Impressive," Dean tries not to let the sour taste in his mouth spoil his words. "It's nice, huh?"

Sam looks at him like he's got a dick for a face. "San Francisco? Yeah, I guess."

Feeling uncomfortable at Sam's expression, Dean takes another shot straight from the bottle and makes a satisfied noise as the alcohol burns down into his chest.

"I guess I'm just used to it," Sam adds, almost as an after thought. He spreads his palms out over the thighs of his pressed dress pants, and looks down to his shoes, swinging over the break of the water. "Immune to what makes everyone else fall in love."

Dean hiccups but tries to cover it with the back of his hand. "San Francisco?"

"Yeah," Sam smiles at him a little like his Sam used to smile at him and Dean's responsive system has no idea how to handle the situation. "San Francisco."

Letting his feet swing, feel the spray of the water on his ankles, Dean takes another swig. "Huh," He says.

"Yeah." Sam's still watching him with this smile on his face, the Dean-smile is what Dean used to secretly call it, just because even though he'd never really seen all that much of Sammy and Jess when they were together, Dean was still pretty sure that look was just for him. Sam clears his throat, snaps out of the smile, and leans back a bit. "Let's see, in six hours, I'll be sitting back at my desk, probably hung over -- "

Dean wants to be chivalrous, say something like, oh naw, don't let me keep you, man, go get some sleep, but then that same part of him that was happy enough to sell his soul for 365 days of getting to look at Sammy wins out and tells him to keep his mouth shut. If this is all you get, if this is all you get...

"Doesn't matter though, right?" Sam asks him, and then, before Dean can even figure out what's happened, Sam's jumped into the water, and all that's left is a spray of salty tasting water and ocean froth.

"Sam!" Dean shouts without thinking, dropping the booze bottle. It clinks off the side of the dock and _splooshs_ into the water, disappearing faster than a sinking stone.

A second later Sam breaks back over the water, eyes closed, shaking his head like a dog.

"It's good," Sam grins, wetly, opening his eyes up at Dean. Dean's heart is triple timing in his chest and feels about as big as a hammer. "Water's good, you should come in."

Sam's smiling and wading backwards as Dean glares at him, googly-eyed.

"I'll sink," Dean complains, knowing he's too tispy to do much other than flounder.

Sam raises his eyebrows; a challenge. "I'll save you."

"Sam," Now Dean's got his warning voice on; it sounds just the same as it did before.

Smiling, Sam tips his head back and makes a watery noise with his mouth, then mockingly copies Dean's tone and says, "_Dean_."

Not that it gives Dean much chance to respond when Sam grabs his ankles and pulls him in, or anything.

.

They make out against the side of the dock, and Sam still fucks Dean's mouth the same way he used to, and his hands still feel the same against his hips and his cock is still hard and thick and pressed up against Dean's middle.

Dean stares up into the ink dark sky with one wet hand knotted in the back of Sam's hair as Sam bites at the side of his neck, not knowing any better.

And... and Dean thinks that, if he's only got the three months left, if that's all he gets, then... then maybe, maybe he could make this Sam work.

.

The next day, Dean wakes up damp and alone in his motel room.

"Jesus," He grumbles at the ceiling, one hand coming up to wipe over his forehead. It smells like alcohol, stale breath, and he's sweating all over.

What a fantastic feeling.

He rolls out of bed, and decides to take a shower.

.

Forty minutes later he's sitting down at the rickety motel kitchen table with a coffee, a box of glazed donuts, and an ache in his stomach. Which is neither hangover nor food related.

It's just, fucking. This Sam. Still Sam Winchester, still six-four and built like a fucking shit house. Still wears the same style of clothes, still _tawlks_ the same, that smile and those teeth, still prone to depressing songs and whining about his love life.

Still infatuated with Dean, Dean could see it in his eyes; a slow fall, and Sam had landed _hard_.

But the worst part was that Dean couldn't say a word. Couldn't even begin to explain the problem at hand: that Sammy, you went missing, _months_ you were gone for, I combed forty eight states and I found you here, but listen, we can fix this, remember how to shoot one of these? Dean knew this Sam would shit himself, would push Dean away and call him a fucking psycho if Dean even said a word.

The truth would scare Sam Winchester to death, maybe, and Dean didn't know if he could handle the thought of it.

He takes a bite, a big, half-donut bite, and reaches for his cell phone.

There's already one new voicemail. He knew that Sam would be a complete sucker in his reality.

.

"It's Sam, uh, from last night? Phone me back, my number's 388-4450."

.

Understandably, Bobby completely flips when Dean tells him.

"What the hell do you _mean_ he just doesn't remember anything?" Bobby's complaining. Dean adjusts the grip on his cell phone and listens to the sound of the dogs barking in the back yard, the sound of metal bouncing off of metal.

Dean locks the motel room door behind him. "He just doesn't remember, Bobby."

"You don't just _not remember_," Bobby tells him, like Dean is stupid or something. "What are you doing to help him?"

_Save your brother, Dean, make sure you keep him safe_ is what Bobby is saying to him, just like his dad used to.

"It's not a demon," Dean says, knows for sure. "Not a Djinn, no sprites, nothing. There's no weird frequency surrounding the area, I put some holy water in his beer at the restaurant last night, he didn't even flinch."

Bobby sighs. "Have you found his medical records yet? Maybe there was an accident."

The keys are already in Dean's hand as he approaches his car, squinting away from the sun beating down against the top of his head.

"I haven't looked," He says, licking his bottom lip. He pauses, hesitates, and stares at the ground. "Bobby I just found him. I, man, I've only got three months, and if, if this is all I --"

The way Bobby says his name freezes him in his tracks. "_Dean_, you selfish bastard."

"Yeah," Dean nods, staring at a spot of oil on the concrete ground. "But I don't care, man. If I just, you know. If I stay here until it happens, maybe Sam will actually get a decent life after I die, you know? He won't even remember me."

Bobby sighs again, Dean can hear him scrubbing at the bridge of his nose.

"You break my heart, kid," He says, and then the line goes dead.

.

Dean agrees to meet Sam that afternoon for coffee, and even though he's five minutes early, Sam's already sitting outside the dumpy cafe of his choice, a bagel and coffee sitting on the table in front of him.

"Hey," He greets, smiling wide, dimples everywhere. Dean's heart thumps in his chest. "I was so hungry, man, sorry I couldn't wait."

Forcing a smile, Dean shakes his head and slides into the chair opposite him. "Nah, don't worry about it," He says, flagging down a waitress, slim and dressed in black. She smiles at him and nods, so he looks back at Sam. "How's it going?"

"Since I last saw you twelve hours ago?" Sam smiles, eyebrows raising. Dean kinda makes a face and shrugs. He wasn't good at the dating girls thing back in the day, he has no idea how a proper gay relationship works. The last guy he banged was his brother. When Dean doesn't say anything else, Sam kinda hides his smile and reaches for his coffee. "I'm okay. A little hung over, but..."

Dean accidentally bumps toes with Sam under the table just as the waitress walks up, blond hair pinned back, a looker too sharp to be working at a little hole in the wall like this.

"Ready to order?" She asks Dean, but glances over at Sam and smiles at him half-way through.

She almost reminds Dean of Jess: his heart starts to pound.

"Uh, yeah," He scratches the back of his neck and nods. "Coffee and... you guys have waffles?"

Laughing, these little dimples coming out, she nods and marks something on her pad of paper.

"Of course. Double-stack?"

Dean looks up at her with a look of adoration in his eyes. "Can I get a side of eggs, too?"

"Scrambled or over easy?" She asks, looking over at Sam again. Sam smiles back at her.

Weighing his options for about half a second, Dean replies, "Scrambled."

"Be right up," She promises him, walking away.

The way Dean realizes Sam's been watching him this whole time makes Dean's mouth go dry.

.

Dean turns up at the restaurant that night with his uniform already on, and pencils himself in on the schedule, pins a note to the staff board that reads _IF YOU WANT TO DROP A SHIFT, I NEED THE HOURS -DEAN._

The little Mexican guy who runs the place is named Fernando, and Dean has him charmed enough to conveniently forget that not only was Dean never actually hired, but is actually a liar and a cheat and probably should not be let anywhere near the premises.

Instead, he asks for Dean's current address, and a blank check for his bank information.

"Not a really a check-writing kind of guy," Dean breaks to him gently, making the man laugh and go red faced.

His boss claps him on the back, and wipes the sweat from his head.

"Funny man, my friend," He says, wobbling away to appraise one of the waitress' tight uniforms.

Dean glances down at his black button down and slacks, frowns.

He can't believe he's in the service industry after all this.

.

"I'm gonna need that room for another two weeks," Dean tells the motel's front-desk clerk when he returns at one-thirty the next morning, pockets stuffed full of tips. One girl even wrote her phone number on a ten dollar note. "Can I pay up front?"

She nods and snaps her gum, looks close to falling asleep right in front of him as she stamps a couple pieces of paper and reaches for a file. Dean starts lining up some twenties on the counter top.

"Last name?" She asks him, looking up at his face from under her horn-rimmed glasses.

Dean fumbles the money, and looks back down at her.

"Cash," He says without thinking, blinking back at the lady when she glances down at the pile of twenties, and then back up at his face.

She doesn't believe him, but it doesn't really matter.

"Well Mr. Cash, the room is yours until August 9th." She hands him a slip of paper. "Three forty nine, total."

Dean hands her the money, and snatches up the receipt.

He doesn't trust her as far as he can throw her. They both give each other condescending looks as he backs out of the room.

.

Staring at himself in the bathroom mirror at work, Dean mulls his options over like he's trying to decide on the better life insurance plan.

It's just, he knows he could do what his father would have done. Watch and record Sam's every move, research any kind of Djinn or dream lore, find the locals and talk up old urban legends. He could become obsessed, with every last second of every last May long weekend and Fourth of July and Sunday tick-tick-ticking into a black hole filled with the fact that his brother is gone.

Because who would do the research, Dean levels with himself, staring at his own face looking back at him. Who would waste hours on the computer looking for these leads and researching stories, whose puppy eyes would he use when mindless flirting with the waitress only got him so far?

His brother is gone. Sam is gone: Dean knows this. Nothing that he sees in this Sam Winchester, lifer of San Francisco, U.S.A., is his own flesh and blood.

A funny feeling, though, when he weighs the second option. Somehow, pretending that everything is just peaches and Sam is only some new guy gay-Dean is dating is so much scarier than any demon army he's ever come face to face with.

"Sam," Dean says a few hours later, hanging out in the parking lot of the restaurant after his shift that night, still dressed in his uniform. Some bitch spilled red sauce on his shirt. "It's Dean. Wanna go for a drink?"

.

Dean feels like the biggest douche ever, sitting there at some ridiculous little bar that Sam takes him to, dressed in a waiter's uniform with his red sauce stain. But then Sam's laughing and leaning closer and they're getting drunk, and then they're _kissing again_, and every synapse in Dean's brain is trying to convince him that there is no other option.

Not when these last three months could be like this, him and Sammy. Nobody else.

.

"Jesus," Jeanette startles, when Sam stumbles into their kitchen sometime in the middle of the night. She's got insomnia and anxiety issues and thinks coffee and tea will fix everything. She bangs her spoon around in her mug for a few seconds as she watches Sam drunkenly toe off his shoes, a vacant smile on his face as he holds onto the wall for support. Holding her cup close, she leans against the counter and raises her eyebrows. "Waiter-guy, right?"

Sam's smile turns into a grin, this dimples grin that he knows is his greatest weapon.

"Dean," He breathes, combing a hand through his hair.

Jeanette raises her eyebrows and twists her mouth into a little smirk as she blows against the top of her coffee.

"Dean left an interesting mark on your neck," She giggles, eyes flickering down to the hollow of his throat.

Laughing, Sam brushes his fingers over his throat. "Shouldn't you be in bed or something?"

"Insomnia," She pouts, totally playing the victim card. Sam knows it and rolls his eyes, but he's still smiling a little as he pours himself a jug of water and chugs half of it in one go.

.

Dean hangs out against the back of the impala when he gets back to the motel and chain-smokes the rest of his cigarettes. He probably shouldn't buy another pack, sturgeon's warning and all that bullshit.

The whisky is making him maudlin, he decides, ashing his smoke, but then again, the night also calls for it. His bottom lip is all swollen from where Sam bit at him.

He rests the cigarette filter against the little bump, and stares at a pot hole in the ground.

The last time he got to be like that with Sam was in Georgia, same town he disappeared in. They'd been having the argument they'd had every day at that point, Sam all petulant and butt-hurt as Dean tried to brush off the whole situation and make crude jokes to cover up the facts that his attitude couldn't.

"I already told you," He'd been saying, handing the threadbare bathroom towel over for Dean to dry his hands on. "I'm going to save you."

Dean was holding the towel like a loose door knob, standing there, still dripping. "Sammy," He'd said.

Sam had reached over and grabbed Dean by the back of the neck, wrenched him closer, the deal still sore enough to make him feel ulcer-riddled as Dean stumbled over the bathroom floor, pulling back against Sam's hand.

"I'm going to save you," Sam promised anyways, seriously, fingers still a bit too tight on the back of Dean's neck. Dean hadn't believed a word and Sam knew it, then especially. His eyes widened a bit; Dean felt unbearably awkward. "Dean."

He couldn't even look his brother proper in the eye the last time they'd seen each other.

"Yeah," He'd grumbled, staring down at the towel he was twisting through his fingers.

Sam had exhaled hard, annoyed, and yanked Dean in for a kiss good enough to make a deal with.

They'd fucked on the motel room bed, Dean a shaking mess like he usually was, even though he'd never admit it, a sucker for riding Sam, Sam's grip on his hips, Dean's hands keeping balance against Sam's heaving chest.

Then Dean had gone and fallen asleep on the bed, and when he'd woke up, Sam was gone. Like he'd never existed in the first place.

.

It's when they're hanging out at some student bar and Sam can't land a decent shot on the dart board that Dean realizes he can be anyone. A lousy aim, a heavy sleeper, a guy who can't stand the sight of blood -- especially his own. He can have a mother and a father and three sisters who are all already married. He could've watched all three Lord of the Rings movies at the same theatre in the same town -- he could've seriously dated some chick in high school and gone to prom with her.

This Sam has no reason to not believe him.

"My boss is kind of a douche, though," Sam's explaining to him, going quiet as he makes this ridiculous face and tries to aim his dart, one eye closed, the other half scrunched up. Dean has no idea what technique Sam is trying to go with. Sam throws the dart and it bounces off the metal frame of the board; he turns back to Dean, not even embarrassed. "He dated my mom a couple months ago, that's why I got hired. Now she's seeing some other guy and he's pissed, I guess. Got his dick all bent out of shape."

Dean's heart thumps uncomfortably in his chest. "What's your mom's name?"

"Martha," Sam answers, as Dean throws his dart and hits the bulls eye. "Holy shit, you're good at that! Dean!"

Trying to force down the gloat-y smile and the sickening feeling in his stomach at the same time, Dean shrugs and starts over to the board to pull all the darts out. He won that round too.

"My parents owned a range when I was younger," He lies.

Sam looks all proud and amazed at Dean as he tugs all the darts out of the board and rounds back over to where they were standing.

Before he gets far enough, Sam reaches out and gets Dean by the curve of the shoulder, pulls him in and kisses him right on the mouth, in front of everyone. Dean's hackles go up without him meaning to -- anyone could _see_ \-- but Sam grins against his mouth, and curls his fingers a bit tighter into the back of Dean's shoulder.

Dean awkwardly touches the flat top part of Sam's thigh, rough and stretched tight with denim.

"Your shot," Dean mumbles, pulling back from Sam's mouth enough to edge a dart up between them. Sam laughs and makes this happy noise, like there's this guy he's just met that he's _infatuated_ with, and the guy's name is Dean-something.

He hasn't had enough heart to decide on a permanent last name just yet. The thought makes his stomach coil.

.

That night Dean meets Jeanette, the same girl who was in the newspaper article alongside Sam and one of his other buddies. He and Sam stumble into the kitchen holding onto each other, and yeah, Dean is maybe a little bit drunk and trying to keep himself upright via Sam's forearms, but the way she makes a big deal out of the two of them together still hits like a punch to the gut.

"I'm gonna puke," Sam manages to spit out, after about thirty seconds of good time fag hag banter with this Jeanette chick.

Dean looks at her sideways; she does have a bangin' rack.

"Outside," She orders, paint brush pointing them both towards the door they just came in from.

Figures Sam would get all cosy in a roommate situation with some art student chick who isn't afraid to boss around a six and a half foot tall dude.

Dean gingerly pats Sam on the back as he pukes off the side of the balcony, but pays most of his attention to doing a quick sweep of all the shrubbery lingering at the end of the yard.

He can't let the paranoia start yet, not when he just found this.

.

Two more weeks pass and Dean talks to Bobby one more time. He's still pissed that Dean isn't doing a damned thing to fix the problem, but all Dean has to counter with is that there's no problem to fix, his brother's memory is gone and _what would you do, Bobby, cause this is really as far as I can deal right now, man._ Bobby doesn't really know what to say to that, but he still sounds worn out and tired as he hangs up, making Dean promise to call at least one more time.

One more time, for goodbyes.

"Maybe I'll bring Sam out for a road trip or something," Dean tries to joke, zipping up his duffel bag and scanning the motel room for anything he might be missing. He's renting out a little corner apartment downtown because the motel staff are really starting to get suspicious, and he doesn't want to spend his last few months in jail for credit card fraud and full on identity theft.

Bobby sighs and the phone line crackles. "Be careful, Dean."

"You know I will," Dean answers, immediately, but even his words sound pained.

.

Bobby's call resonates enough for Dean to do another comb through the library on any kind of memory hoax or reality altering demon. He finds stuff he already knew about the Djinn, a few kids novels on alternate realities, and some scholar's essay on mantiums. Which freak Dean right the hell out.

The search is half-assed at best and Dean doesn't check half of the leads that he usually would. And strangely enough, Dean is completely at peace with it, his guilty conscience doesn't do much other than tick.

.

They fuck for the first time since the last time in Sam's bedroom in the little town house he shares with his two friends. Dean about comes when Sam finger bangs him, tangles his fingers in the sheets and gasps, gasps, gasps, panting hard at the ceiling, chewing down against his lip as Sam's fingers jerk in and out of him, Sam out of breath, too, just watching Dean.

Sam splays his palm across Dean's stomach -- still fits just right, fingers resting over the curve of Dean's stomach, pressing against the flat muscles as Dean's stomach twitches and he tries to hold off coming, breathing hard and trying to focus in on the ceiling.

"On your back," Dean pants, trying to shove against the inside of Sam's elbow, Sam too distracted with his fingers in Dean to really pay much attention.

His pupils are blown wide as he nods and crawls backwards, over his bed sheets and the thick white blanket Dean wouldn't mind burrito-ing himself in at a later date.

"Down," He hushes, smoothing over Sam's stomach, his cock, hard and resting against his belly.

Sam doesn't put up a fight as he nods and leans back, resting up on his elbows as Dean leans in and kisses him, mouth open as he crawls onto Sam's lap and throws a knee over his hip.

"You're so hot," Sam says, stupidly, reaching up to comb his fingers through Dean's hair. Dean huffs out an awkward laugh and ducks his head, reaching down to hold Sam's dick steady enough to slide down onto it. Sam's still touching his head and gasping. "Jesus, Dean."

The backs of Dean's thighs bump against the top of Sam's and he shakes.

"Sammy," He whispers, clunking his forehead against Sam's.

.

For Sam, the last month and a half has been like a Katherine Heigl movie come to life.

He is completely, stupidly infatuated. Jeanette makes fun of him all the time, his Facebook status is constantly set to something like 'pretty good actually!!!' or 'stoked on tonight!!!' and he's been trying to badger Dean into making an account for himself, just so Sam can set his relationship status to 'In a Relationship with Dean Barrett.' Sam still thinks it's pretty cool Dean has the same last name as that dude from Pink Floyd.

Dean has a nice car, a killer smile, and a lump on the bridge of his nose from when he broke it water skiing during a ninth grade camping trip. He's got no siblings, long fingers, and a scar across his chest from his dad's camper line snapping up and knocking he wind out of him when he was thirteen. Dean's voice is rough and sometimes he sounds like he knows more than he really lets on, he wanted to work at the circus as a flame thrower when he was six, and took up an interest in knife throwing as soon as he was old enough. That's where the staple stitches up the side of his ring finger came from.

Everything Dean says, thinks, does and expects infatuates Sam to the point of dizziness.

If Dean ever left, or disappeared, or just decided Sam wasn't what he was looking for all this time, Sam thinks there's a good chance he'd just lie down forever.

.

"God," Sam grumbles one afternoon when they're at the supermarket -- the supermarket! -- and he's supervising Dean fondling the mushrooms they're gonna need for the dinner Sam's cooking tonight.

Dean gives one of the mushrooms a little squeeze. He has no idea what he's looking for in this particular piece of produce.

"What?" He asks, distracted, as he flicks off a particularly long streak of dirt. He tosses that one in the brown paper bag, he's kinda become attached to it.

Sam's hand is on the middle of his back, then, and he's trying to be all inconspicuous, which is a completely ridiculous thought for this particular Sam. Even the Sam who'd had a life time of hunter training had had his bull in a china shop moments.

"It's Mark," He says, mostly to himself. Dean reaches for another mushroom, but glances over his shoulder as he does so. He has no idea what the hell Sam is bitching about.

He tosses that mushroom in the bag, too, then adds the bag to Sam's basket.

"Who's Mark?" He asks, making a face, scratching the back of his neck. Sam's eyes flip between this dude dressed all smart, wandering down the produce aisle with a cart full of organic produce and other bullshit, and Dean, standing there his leather jacket and torn jeans, with mushroom dirt all over his hands and old demon blood on the soles of his shoes.

Sam frowns, and shakes his head. "This asshole who I was kinda involved with at one point."

"Huh," Dean frowns too. Doesn't really know what to say to that. He looks the guy over again, and yeah, kinda looks like what Dean had imagined Sam's type to be. Smart looking, stylish, dark hair and light eyes. Almost Sam's height. "Wanna go over and say hi?"

The exasperated, bitchy look Sam throws him levels Dean.

"No?" He intones, eyebrows all knotted together in the middle of his forehead like it's one big ball of Dean's stupid. "Why would I wanna do that?"

Dean makes a face and then tries to laugh. "Just joking."

Mark disappears down the granola and cereal aisle and Sam keeps looking at him funny, but he rests an arm around Dean's shoulders anyways as they head over to the bakery. Dean promised himself some pie.

.

"Mark seemed like a pretty cool guy," Dean says that night, when he's laying beside Sam in Sam's huge IKEA bed. It's high and soft and Dean's pretty sure he feels more protected here than he ever did behind salted lines.

Sam makes a grunting noise and flips his hand against Dean's shoulder, smacking him lightly.

"Mark's a dick," He grumbles, sounding almost asleep.

Dean blinks awake in the dark. Mark looked pretty suave.

"Well," He says to nobody in particular.

A jaw-cracking yawn from Sam as he fights to roll over onto his side, getting all close up against Dean's back and curling his hand against Dean's hip.

"Seriously, Dean, don't worry about it," Sam intones behind him, breath hot and damp against the back of Dean's neck. "I was going through a phase."

Dean's stomach prickles. Sam's hand is still flip-flopping against the front of him, feeling for no reason. He asks, "Phase, huh?"

"Yeah," Sam flattens his hand out across Dean's belly, and digs his fingertips into the soft flesh there. Dean's chest goes all hot and uncomfortable. "I guess I felt like I was missing something, and at the time I was pretty convinced he was it."

A sharp twist in the side of his ribs and Dean all but startles into the dark room. Sam's hand twitches against his stomach, he's tracing again.

"What changed?" Dean strains; please don't answer me, Sammy.

Sam's fingers tickle Dean's belly and then drop flat to the mattress. "No idea," He says, honestly, and why should he know? Dean closes his eyes and tries to breathe steady, in through his nose. "I think it's when I met you."

"Sam," Dean jerks, out of instinct, closing his eyes so tight he can feel his lashes poking him.

Laughing softly into the back of Dean's neck, Sam closes his eyes and stretches out all his fingers along the bed. "But that's stupid, isn't it?"

"Yeah," He whispers, trying to laugh, to just brush it off like Sam did.

Dean doesn't sleep that night, he feels carsick and seasick and all other kinds of sick.

When Sam wakes up, Dean is in the same position he was when he fell asleep; starting to stick to the mattress, but hopelessly stuck to Sammy.

.

The next morning, Dean salts the lines of Sam's bedroom window and rubs some more into the doorway.

You can never be too sure.

.

Dean's reading the newspaper. Like full on _reading it_, even the lifestyle pieces and that one article about the chick who just opened the dog salon. He flips through to the comics and reads those straight through, then the obits (bad habits die hard) and the classifieds.

"Hey," Sam breathes into the back of his hair, suddenly, making Dean startle hard.

He drops the newspaper with one hand and feels his belly drop. "Jesus Christ, Sam."

Sam's laughing and coming around the kitchen table to sprawl over one of the chairs.

"Don't do that," Dean says, unnecessarily, trying to put on his best bitch-face as he flicks his newspaper straight and feels uncomfortable under the happiness of Sam's proud smile.

His hand creeps across the table and under the newspaper, bumping up against Dean's and shaking the news read enough that Dean can't focus on it.

"There's a party at one of my friend's places tonight," Sam explains, twisting Dean's pointer finger a little too hard before he backs off fully. "Our annual Halloween drunk fest."

Dean gives up the idea of reading the newspaper with Sam all sprawled over the kitchen chair beside him like that.

"I don't do Halloween," He explains, tossing the newspaper down and starting to get up out of the chair. He doesn't mention the fact that the actual _annual_ Winchester Halloween drunk fest always involves a lot of booze, a lot of fucking, and a lot of bad late night television. Sam watches him. "It's for kids, and chicks who like to dress up as slut-animals."

"Dean," Sam laughs, reaching out to grab him around the waist before he gets the chance to fully get away. "Come on. We'll get drunk, we'll make out in costumes, it'll be fun."

Frowning even more when Sam tugs him back and into his _lap_, for Christ's sake, Dean ends up with one arm over the back of Sam's shoulders to steady himself. His stomach goes prickly and hot at his cell memory of the position: Sam carting him off as he bled out, the time that sprite tricked him into having two left feet, drunken nights at the bar, his possessive streak after the whole Gordon thing.

"I don't do parties either," Dean says quietly, removing his arm from the back of Sam's shoulders.

For one explicit moment, Dean misses his brother so badly it aches.

.

That night, Dean sits down at Sam's computer while the monster is asleep in his bed, and googles "genie."

39,400,000 results come up. Dean remembers why he always left Sam to the research.

He watches Sam over the top of the computer screen, sprawled across the bed in his usual passed out position, costume paint still smeared across his face. Zombies, they'd dressed up as, because Dean was really not into it unless they were involved.

"Goddamnit," He whispers to himself, that wet hot swell of tears starting up in the back of his throat. He closes the laptop, and gets up to have a shower.

On his way back to bed, he stops to re-salt the lines below Sam's window.

.

Dean loads the Colt and keeps it locked in the trunk of the impala. He goes for a forty minute run every morning through Sam's neighbourhood, to keep a routine. Every night he slips a shot of holy water into Sam's gurgling cup in the bathroom, and puts fresh salt out.

It isn't until they're walking down the sidewalk after having lunch downtown that he realizes how fucking scared he is. White hot, shaking mess, unprepared _scared._

"Seriously man," Sam says to him after, trying to calm him down after some bitch's huge lab got off his leash and came barking at Dean. "It was only a puppy."

Dean's just trying to calm down and not have a heart attack as Sam's hands brush in all the wrong places, smoothing over the side of his head and _Jesus Christ, leave my head alone_.

"I just don't like dogs," Dean manages, batting Sam's hand away.

Sam, frowning, lets his hand drop to the side.

.

Like a smack in the face, Christmas comes in the middle of November. It starts with Target commercials, bleeds into the department stores, and suddenly it's the second week of December and Jeanette is asking him what he's getting Sammy for Christmas.

_A couple of barbies and maybe two bottles of Tequila,_ Dean thinks to himself.

"Uh," He actually says out loud, in the middle of a very unmanly fight with the juicer Sam recently ordered off of the shopping channel. He squints over at Sam's roommate like the thought is actually a struggle. "I haven't really thought about it yet."

Jeanette gives him this steely glare like he better get on the present train, and quick.

.

He spends the third day before Christmas wandering around a department store, trying to figure out what to buy Sam. In the end he gets a new pack of t-shirts for himself, a can of Pringles for the road, and a dirty look from the middle aged woman behind the counter.

"I just really don't like Christmas," He tells Sam later, on his cell phone during his break at work. Smoking has become a new routine for his fifteen minutes of solitude, a cheap way to deal with the shitty attitudes most of his customers present.

Sam laughs a little on the other end of the line, he sounds like he's shaving. "Dude, don't get stressed, okay? It's no big deal. Seriously."

"Jeanette made it sound like our fiftieth anniversary or something," Dean mutters, flicking the ash from his smoke. He frowns and squints back at the restaurant. "I gotta get back."

Water splashing and the scratchy sound of Sam drying his face with a towel. "You gonna stop by after your shift?"

Dean flicks the butt of his cigarette into a nearby plant pot, and pushes away from the bike rack he was leaning on.

"Yeah," He sighs, starting back across the parking lot. He scratches the back of his head. "You still gonna be up?"

Sam's voice is quiet and sure as he replies, "I'll stay up until you get here."

.

It's New Years Eve and they're getting drunk on cheap red wine in the back yard of one of Sam's friend's little rental places. It's got a sweet above ground swimming pool.

"Sam told me he wanted to marry you," Jeanette drunk-smooshes his face between her wobbly hands and staggers forward, a couple steps closer to him.

Party cup crunching in his hand, Dean staggers with her, laughing, drunk enough to find it funny.

"Don't tell anyone," Dean laughs, leaning forward, bumping into her forehead before he rests a hand against the curve of her shoulder and stumbles forward. He grabs her chin and tries to focus in on her face, but it's hard and she's blurry. "But I would marry him, too."

Then he passes out and hits the ground hard enough to get a bruised cheekbone the next morning.

.

Luckily for him, Jeanette is a sloppier drunk than he is, and doesn't remember a word of their very clandestine conversation.

.

Three weeks. Dean has three weeks, and that's it.

He stares at himself in the bathroom mirror, hard.

He didn't think it would be this hard to let go.

.

Fernando corners Dean one night and asks if he wants to be promoted to a more full-time position, starting next pay period.

"I would, man, but I," Dean scratches the back of his neck and makes a face. "I'm kinda... I'm planning on taking this trip in a couple of weeks, and I... I wouldn't really be available after that."

Still looking at him expectantly, Fernando claps one hand down on Dean's shoulder. Hard.

"You'll come back!" He crows, smelling like seasoning and yeast. "I still have position for you when you come back."

Dean shifts under his expectant gaze, and licks his lips. "I dunno if I'm gonna be able to come back yet."

"Dean," Fernando starts --

Forcing a smile, Dean claps Fernando on the arm. "Tell you what. I'll go, I'll call you when I come back, and you can promote me to whatever the hell you want."

Laughing, Fernando laughs and grips Dean's forearm. "See? I like it. Good plan, good."

"Okay," Dean pats him on the back. "Okay."

.

Dean's under the impala with Iron Maiden on the little radio set-up he's got going on. He has no idea what he's gonna do with her; it's not like she's a car this Sam knows how to handle.

He's singing the best part of _Run to the Hills_ ("Raping the women and wasting the men, the only good Indians are tame") when Sam's feet shuffle up the side of the car and pause somewhere around the vicinity of Dean's head.

"Are you seriously singing to the car?" He asks.

Dean rolls his eyes, pets her belly pan, and rolls out.

"Jesus it's sunny," He complains, squinting at the sun filtering over Sam's shoulders. It isn't hot, but it's bright.

Sam kneels down so he's level with Dean half propped up on the creeper.

"I'm going to the grocery store," He explains, wiping a streak of oil off of Dean's cheek with his thumb. "What do you want?"

.

They're fucking, Dean's shoulder bumping up against the head board of Sam's bed, his neck bent at a sharp angle that has his ear flush with the pillow.

"Dean," Sam pants against the line of Dean's jaw, jerking them both up against the head board. Dean gasps and tries to steady one of his hands against the wall above them, tries to get some traction against Sam's thrusting, but his wrist goes weak and then he's moaning and shaking and coming all over the place.

Sam fucks him hard until he comes, too, trembling like anything as he tries to kiss Dean's mouth hard.

"She said you would marry me," Sam pants against the side of his head, fingers threading through Dean's sweaty hair, trembling against Dean's scalp. Dean's stomach, tingling with its muscles twitching from the exertion, drops to his crooked toes. He closes his eyes and wishes they were both anywhere but here. His brother wouldn't demand this of him. Sam mouths against the curve of Dean's jaw again and pulls away, trying to focus in on his face. "Would you?" He asks, thumb pressing the dip of Dean's jaw and ear. "Marry me?"

Dean breathes hard, shaking, and doesn't know what to say. Sam's watching him with intent, pupils blown wide and dark.

He starts nodding, his eyes are closing, but he nods until Sam's hugging him tight enough to die right here.

.

Dean has a nightmare that evening, intense enough to jerk him awake and frightening enough to lose all hope of falling back to sleep. Dean leaves Sam passed out in the bed, and quietly moves down into the kitchen, where he makes himself some coffee, black, and sits down to the table.

When Sam wakes up five hours later and shuffles in with the biggest smile on his face, Dean is at least mostly comatose, propped up in the wooden chair with coffee stained teeth and sore knuckles from holding on so tightly to his mug.

"Morning," Sam smiles anyway, like he doesn't have a care in the world.

Dean startles back awake; Sam doesn't. This is what Dean wanted.

It's what Dean got.

.

Dean checks his voicemail at work that night, when he's on his smoke break.

The only message he's got is from Bobby.

_"Dean, call me back, I don't know whether you're dead or alive. It's important,"_ He insists.

Shaking his head, Dean lets his cell phone snap shut.

He's got nine days to live this life out, goddamnit he's gonna make them fucking count.

.

On day one, Dean buys seven cheeseburgers and eats them all in one sitting, then walks outside the restaurant and pukes in the potted plants.

One of the waitresses hits on him when he comes back in, despite the puke taste on his mouth and the Sam he has waiting for him in the booth. His brother would have gone all douche bag on the girl and made it real obvious he was the one up Dean's ass, but this Sam just smiles at him when he comes back from harmlessly flirting with her at the front counter, and asks if he wants some pie.

Day two, and Dean flies down the closest thing to a country side San Fransisco has. He keeps the music loud, the windows down, and a grin on his face. He handles her well, tears down the street in reverse at 120mph just for old time's sake, speeds back down the deserted road at 180, and burns rubber when he comes to a stop just before the freeway ramp. He almost loses control twice.

He's got a day off so on day three he spends all day in Sam's bed. They make out, they bang, they come on each other and then lick it off. By the time he falls asleep for real that night, he's sore everywhere, his ass hurts, his muscles ache, and even the corners of his mouth are rubbed red. He sleeps full through until Sam wakes him up the next morning on his way to work.

Day four he phones Bobby, but only gets his old tape answering machine. He leaves a message that goes like, _ "I'm sorry I never made it out there, Bobby, but I got caught up and... and we had Christmas, man, like a real Christmas, his room mate made turkey and it was fucking delicious. Now I guess I'm gonna be gone this time next week, and I don't have enough time to make it out there to, you know. Say goodbye and... I took her out on Tuesday and she flew like she'd never stopped, man. I'm gonna leave her for you, locker 104 at Sal's, it's this place here, he promised he'd keep the cover on her and everything. _

Phone me back if you get this."

Click.

.

"Shut up," Sam laughs, shaking his head as he bends down to pull the milk out of the fridge.

Dean's standing nearer the sink, no shirt, a pair of unbuttoned jeans.

"I'm serious, man, just listen to me," He says, running a hand through his hair. The front half is already all spiked up from dirt and his nervous fingers.

Sam stands up with the carton of milk in one hand and the other held out like it's actually gonna stop Dean.

"_I'm serious,_ Dean. Stop with all this bullshit," He says, firm.

Dean licks his lips and takes a step forward. "I'm just saying that if anything ever happens -- "

Jaw set firm, muscles working, Sam's grip increases on the milk.

"Dean," He says, calmly, very calmly. "Shut the fuck up."

And that's day six.

.

He has a nightmare that the hell hounds are chasing him through a forest the next night. Sam is right behind him, running, yelling at Dean to go faster, move, damnit, _move._

Dean jerks awake with a sweaty forehead and a racing heart.

It was his brother in the dream.

.

Dean goes to an all you can eat buffet with Sam for dinner on day eight. He stacks his plate with Chinese food, pancakes, eggs, waffles, sausages, spaghetti, corner sandwiches, a few ribs and chicken balls. For dessert he goes back and gets cake, pie, ice cream, pudding, chocolate covered strawberries, more cake, more pie, and finally a sundae.

The whole time Sam watches him with a staggering fondness.

"What?" Dean grumbles through a mouthful of upside down cake. It's not the best he's ever had. "I'm hungry."

Sam stabs a big hunk of pie for himself and shrugs. "Nothing."

"Hey, what about going to San Jose next weekend?" Dean grins around his food, wanting to make it last forever.

A slow smile spreads across Sam's face and he nods. "San Jose. Next weekend," He confirms.

"I'll hold you to it," Dean says, pointing at Sam with his fork, caked with dessert toppings.

Sam laughs into his drink.

.

"Night," Sam mouths the back of his head, one arm sliding around to touch over the front of Dean's throat.

Dean feels like he's going to puke. His palms are sweaty, his hands are shaky, his knees are trembling, and he wonders if Sam notices.

"Yeah, night," He manages, clinking the spoon around in his bowl of cereal.

It's soggy and gross and the milk has turned a dull pink from the red dye.

"See you in the morning," Sam presses a bit harder, a little more insistent, and all Dean can do is nod. He wants to turn around and kiss him hard, like it's the last time, wants to hug him and promise a lot of things that wouldn't make sense to someone like Sam.

Instead, Dean clinks around his spoon a bit more and nods. "In the morning," He says.

.

Dean is still sitting alone in the kitchen when the clock strikes midnight.

His time has officially run out.

.

The next morning, Sam wakes up to an empty bed. He's also late for work, as usual, after hitting the snooze button on his alarm two or three times.

"Dean?" He asks, sleepily, most of his face still stuck to the pillow as he tries to lift his head up and look around. Sunlight is coming in through his bedroom window, leaving bright strips across the carpet and the foot of his bed.

He grumbles a bit as he's sitting up. It's only seven, Dean wouldn't have even left for his run yet.

Wobbly morning legs lead him out of his bedroom and down into the kitchen. If there's one place Dean is going to be, it's also where the food is.

"Hey," He greets, wiping the sleep out of his eye, that happy swell in his stomach like it does every time he sees Dean.

Dean is still sitting at his kitchen table, in the same chair Sam left him in last night. His eyes are dark and unfocused, hand loose around the handle of an empty coffee cup, the bowl of cereal he was working on last night square in the middle of the table.

"You okay?" Sam asks, starting over to the table. He rubs at his eye again, itchy. "Something happen?"

Dean licks his lips slowly, staring.

"No," He says, slowly, eyes heavy. "Nothing happened."

.

_"Bobby, it's Dean. Listen, you have to phone me back."_

.

He never heard the barking. The scratching. Never saw the vicious dragon mouths of the dogs.

The hair on the back of his neck never stood up. Midnight came in every city in the world, and Dean was never pulled to bloody shreds by hell hound teeth.

He calls in sick to work that night; somehow, he doesn't think he can cope.

.

"So hey," Sam says, later that night, once he's home from the office. He throws his things onto the coffee table and then drops down onto the couch Dean has been falling asleep on all day, a wide, happy grin on his face. He bumps knees with Dean. "San Jose, huh?"

Dean half-smiles and nods, stretching his arm up and over the back of the couch.

He's on brought time right now, for whatever reason, and that's what runs out the fastest.

"This guy I work with went with his family last summer," Sam is carrying on, already reaching for the remote. He wiggles his toes against Dean's. "He says it's beautiful in August."

Dean's cell phone starts vibrating against the table; Sam doesn't even know what's happened until Dean's already half way across the room, speaking quiet and low into his phone.

.

"Bobby," He breathes, closing himself in the bathroom at the end of the hall. It's small and white and never gets used except at parties. "What the hell is going on, man?"

Bobby sounds pissed off right out the gate. "What the hell is going on? Why the hell didn't you pick up when I phoned you last week, Dean?"

"I missed the call," Dean replies, lamely, leaning against the door. It creaks under his weight and he hears Sam flip the TV channel in the living room. "Sorry. But we've got bigger problems than that right now."

.

Dantalion, Bobby tells him. They're not pissing around with some minor legion demon, Sam went right to the source, the fucking Great Duke of Hell.

To say the least, Dean is mad. He tries not to let it show when he cracks the bathroom door open and has to walk past Sam's reclined position on his way out the front door.

"Gonna go get some pizza," He says, pulling his boots on. Sam shows mild interest from the couch, mindless TV sleepy as he smiles and waves Dean off.

He adds, "Make sure you get me a pepperoni," and sinks into the couch cushions.

Bobby agreed to meet him in the morning to handle the situation, but Dean can't wait.

.

Dean goes over the phone conversation with Bobby the entire car ride there.

"He sold his memories," Bobby had explained to him. Dean's hand clutch a little harder around his steering wheel. She shakes. "Traded everything he knows for your soul."

Back in Sam's little white bathroom, only used for house parties, Dean hadn't understood. "Why the hell would he do that?"

The sound of Bobby's sighing echoed everywhere, the familiar noise that sounded a lot like stupid, stupid Dean.

"How's he supposed to take on Lillith if he doesn't remember how to hold a damn gun?"

In that bright little bathroom, Dean's heart had stopped in his chest. Now, he almost runs a red light at the short memory.

"This isn't a regular demon we're dealing with here, Dean," Bobby had went on. "This is a duke of Hell, he has an entire _army_ of demons under his hand."

Licking his lips, Dean winds his hands around the steering wheel and takes off when the light turns to green. He powers into second gear; he's flying, now.

He'd yelled at Bobby during their conversation, even though he really should have tried to be as quiet as possible: Sam had been in the other room, after all.

"How the hell did he steal Sam's memories?" He'd shouted at Bobby, like it was him with Sam's brains held in a jar.

Bobby had explained it all to him carefully, like Dean was still a child and needed to have his hand held through things like this.

"He's more powerful than a Djinn," Bobby had said. "By spades he's more powerful. He can change peoples' thoughts, memories, their _whole lives_ at will, Dean. All Sam had to do was promise him something he'd want in return."

Dean had leaned hard against the bathroom door, at that point the sound of Jeanette coming home in the other room had been all of a fuzzy memory. "And all they want is Sam."

"Yeah, and maybe more than you do, boy," Bobby had told him, sounding quiet and close to pained. "The only other thing, is that Sam wants you even more."

.

He flies down the same back road he took her down just days ago, pushing 200 because even the cops aren't around.

When he gets to the crossroads, she pushes clouds of dust up, and he barely has the engine off before he's up and out, storming across the dirt road.

"Where are you, bitch?" He shouts, reaching into his jacket for his gun, spinning around in the middle of the roads as the dust cloud settles. "Show your face!"

She appears behind him, of course, this low chuckle and when he turns around there she is, another one of them with dark hair and a low cut black dress, blood red pout on her lips as she watches Dean, lost again.

"Hello stranger," She smiles, taking a step forward, both hands folded behind her back.

Dean cocks his gun and aims right at her head. "Give them back to him," He orders.

"Can't." She takes another slow step forward, corner of her mouth twitching into a happy little grin.

Dean's mouth shakes but he holds his gun steady.

"Don't bullshit me," He manages to say.

She's got her Poor Dean face on, an expression they must've all perfected the first time around, as she steps even closer to him and comes close enough to rest her forehead against the barrel.

"I'm not." She's as calm as they always are. "We can take, Dean, but we aren't brain surgeons. We can't put back something that doesn't exist any longer."

He cocks the gun to her forehead, pressing into the cool skin there. "Liar."

"Sorry," She smiles softly, shaking her head. His hand starts to shake the same way. Smiling deeper, she takes a step back and starts to circle in on Dean. "I thought you'd be happy. You get Sammy all to yourself from here on out, don't you? No demons, no spells, no bad memories..."

Mouth trembling, Dean hates the wet hot tears starting to burn his eyes up. He snaps. The thin elastic that was holding his head on breaks, snaps back against his insides, and launches him forward.

"What about me?" He shouts, moving forward, grabbing her by the elbow. She grins at him and jostles around, taking a step back as he keeps moving forward. His everything is trembling. "I have to remember everything!"

Her whole body jostles as Dean shakes her hard, shoving finally as he takes a step back and looks up at the sky, throat working as he tries not to cry.

Never has in front of a demon. Never will.

"Not my problem," She says, easily. "And it isn't Sam's anymore, either. You wanted him, Dean," She advances on him again, until they're nose to nose and he can feel her cold breath on his lips. "Well, now you've got him."

.

"Anything," Dean says, doesn't mean to, but it slips out. "Just tell me what you want, it's yours."

.

Bobby finds the address no thanks to Dean's backwards instructions the next morning. The only way he knows for sure is the car sitting in the driveway.

He parks on the road, and watches the house for a few moments. No movement, except for one of the lights on in the front windows. Dean's gotta be there, at least, wouldn't be anywhere else without his wheels.

"In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti," He mutters to himself, just in case, doing a cross over his chest with only the rear view mirror as a witness.

Then he's up and out of the car, heading down the path to Sam's front door.

The bell chimes, and it's only a few heart beats until there are foot steps heading down the hall.

It's Sam who answers, looking at Bobby like he's just a stranger.

"Can I help you?" He asks, not even holding the doorway all the way open.

Bobby falters a smile and says, "I'm a friend of Dean's."

Sam smiles for real, then, that toothy grin that Bobby's been used to seeing since the kid was in nothing but diapers.

"Come on in, I'll tell him you're here," Sam says, holding the door wide open.

Bobby steps into the front hallway, but leaves the door open as Sam starts down the hallway, already shouting for Dean.

An annoyed, very Dean-like shout comes from further back in the house. "What?!"

"Someone's here for you!" Sam yells back, moving around in the kitchen. Dean yells something else Bobby can't hear. "I don't know! A friend!"

A few minutes wait and then Dean is coming down the hall, a confused frown on his face as he looks Bobby over.

"Can I help you?" He asks, eyebrows raising. Like he's never met Bobby a day in his life.

Immediately, Bobby's blood runs cold.

.

_He looks like a woman, any kind of woman Dean could have met on any street in the world. _

Scared -- Dean is scared as he looks up into the face, its left hand pressed to the side of Dean's temple, right holding a thick book.

She grins down at Dean, teeth white and even. Dean swallows.

"Just," His fingers dig into the loose dirt at the side of his hip; his eyes flicker to the ink dark sky, black and full of stars. He loses focus. "Just, put something good in there."

The last thing he remembers, is not wanting to remember anything at all.


End file.
